49 Years of Progress erased.

Adam's personalised stamps are a thing of beauty with a solid message.  In this case he helps us to look carefully at the butterflys and to protect them. IMHO, creating a thing of beauty is a way to get people to take notice and hopefully change behaviour. In this case, perhaps progress isn't necessarily good! 

Moving on to stickers, I am struck by their anger at the state of the justice department. Again, the images are compelling. They help me to feel the depressing truth about one branch of the Govt.

The booklet describes Adam's journey with collaborators and singularly in the mail art (rubber stamps) world. LOOK CAREFULLY at the beautiful work.

 

Are you Kind?

One of the things I regret, regularly, is how I don't answer emails, or post swiftly.  When I was in the Kerio Valley, hanging at the post office waiting for news from abroad, I had already composed a version of my reply as I walked home from the PO. Then in the evenings, after I marked students' work, I would paint the envelopes and put the words int he right order on paper. These days I respond in my head but it takes days, weeks, sometimes even months to reply and by then the chimera of news has shifted and my 'reply' seems irrelevant. Life is just faster.

I'm not sure when Sticker Dude sent me this, but the inclusion of Guernica makes me think it was a recent mailing. My pile of mailart is topsy turvy and out of order. and LATE to respond to.

And yet, although the past two + years have been a miserable chapter, as I read the comments from the Idaho doctor, I couldn't help thinking how our gratitude for the NHS, and Doctors worldwide is but a memory in the news of hundreds of thousands of refugees flooding through the European borders and being homed by mere citizens, responding to the humanitarian crisis.  We are doing THIS together. We have done that together.

Meanwhile, I am a somewhat lapsed mailartist, meaning to send things out but running out of time before the sun sets.  While I agree wholehearedly with Joel, that mail art is a way of looking at art and life from a different perspective and sharing art for art's sake, I can't help painting for paintings sake and that distracts from the Utopian aspect.

 Thanks Joel, so much to think about, respond to and talk to myself about.  Hopefully I will respond to you soon!

Demise of a Democracy

As I keep hearing, 'we are at an inflection point' and the inflection point Sticker Dude is honing in on is the demise of our Democracy.  But I guess it's not all bad in the world according to Sticker Dude, or 'sticker art dude' as he calls himself on this mailing. Look at the mailart title/ tidal he presents us with: 'This is how Democracies fail and the quiet revolution blossoms…' 

I guess it's all a little bat-bleep crazy behind the voting curtain. Or maybe I shouldn't say that, perhaps that is perpetuating the big lie?

back of envelope

and as mailartists we all have our role to play. and if you are anythinglike me, you are a different mailartist on different days.

I read Sticker Dude's clipping service when the article first came out and re-reading it becomes more alarming.  After all the US has hadJanuary 6th since then. 

Thanks Sticker Dude, that's a lot to think about on a sunday night in January!
 

Always Fresh

I realised as I was scanning this stuff from Joel that I don't know about his practice… what I mean is I don't know if he sends lots of similar mailings in a whoosh or if every package of mail art is bespoke.  /What I really mean is did Joel make the same envelope for a series of mail art mailings or did he just make one of the envelopes I received? I am in love with this envelope! It's everyting about it. And the Grantwood motif is exquisite.

This mail art mailing arrived some time ago… I must get back to recording incoming dates. but, I am not a perfectionist.  I am not exact.  I am intuitive and rules, well rules. So very little interest in rules, but whenever this arrived, the fact that I opened it today was timely. I have been totally out-of-commission for weeks due to a local art exhibition I ran/hung with a community of artists. I made many paintings over lockdown.  I didn't make so much mail art.  I was experimenting with myself instead of exchanging with others. That's OK, but the writing included in this mailing expresses, exactly, how I feel about mail art and why it is valid, important and I will always participate in some fashion.

And this brilliant, Ray johnson collage decoder will be invaluable. Thank you for a perfect mailing, Joel. It had everything I needed today and I am inspired.